Roy Schestowitz wrote:
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> Is the Nokia N900 Internet Tablet really coming to T-Mobile USA
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> | I enjoy using the Nokia N810 device from time to time to surf, use some
> | old Palm apps with GarnetVM, and watch movies. I do find it to be a bit
> | laggy at times though so it isn’t always with me. MobileCrunch posted
> | some rumored news on the next Nokia Internet Tablet referred to as the
> | N900, Rover, and Maemo Flagship. It is very similar to the Nokia N97,
> | but with a higher resolution display and Maemo OS rather than S60.
> `----
>
> http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=1805
I have one of the early Nokia Linux tablet devices.
I like it somewhat, but it tends to have some negative aspects:
1. crashes and lockups were common in the initial release of the firmware.
2. It uses Opera and only supports Flash 9 (most popular sites use Flash 10
now).
3. Java support (last I checked) is non-existent.
4. Maemo (the desktop) isn't ideal. It's a single fullscreen window
interface. It's not generally conducive to multitasking. It's Gtk-based,
and there were some issues, even after flashing the firmware.
5. There is no root account enabled by default, so it's effectively a closed
system out of the box.
6. The only toolkit/framework you can use is based on Gtk+/Maemo, so any
useful Qt/KDE/Xt/Xaw/Tk apps won't work.
7. The out of memory handling wasn't great. I think this was a kernel bug.
When I used the removable flash memory card for a swap file it worked
better.
8. There seems to be more of an emphasis on making it look pretty, than
making it look useful. The borders of windows are huge, and I would rather
in general have more screen space for useful information. There is a
fullscreen mode for some apps, but it often means that you have to switch in
and out of fullscreen mode to scroll around (depending on the app).
9. Opera for ARM tends to crash a lot.
10. (last I checked) no support for some common multimedia codecs.
11. it doesn't come with a terminal or any terminal support out of the box.
You can install xterm, and ssh as optional packages.
12. by default the removable memory card is formatted with a FAT-32 format
IIRC.
13. playing videos seemed to be hit or miss. Some would play very slowly,
unless converted to a format that required less translation.
5 can be fixed by flashing the device in Windows, or Linux, with a
proprietary tool (binary executable) with a flag that enables a root account
(I did this eventually).
4 and 6 can be worked around by using something other than Maemo, though
that's often difficult. The flash tools are proprietary (last I checked),
so my friend, and I hacked around to get another window manager running in
X, after enabling the root account.
It's not the most open device, but it's more open than some.
Some positives:
1. the wireless was pretty solid, and setup was easy.
2. the case was sturdy in the model I used. It feels firm.
3. the battery life was excellent.
4. the audio is pretty good with headphones.
5. the screen has adjustable brightness, and is easy to see.
For a developer the Nokia tablets are probably not ideal, but for users with
simple needs they are good. It's good for playing music, or general web
browsing, and sometimes reading PDFs.
It would help a lot if Nokia opened up the firmware tools, and the firmware
itself, and allowed the device to have root access without having to flash
the firmware. It's basically an "idiot box Linux."
-George
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